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Don henry1

Don Henry and Kevin Ives

Real Names: Larry Kevin Ives and Donald George Henry
Nicknames: Kevin (Larry); Don (Donald)
Location: Alexander, Arkansas
Date: August 23, 1987

Case[]

Details: In the pre-dawn hours of August 23, 1987, a seventy-five car, 6,000 ton Union Pacific cargo train made its regular night run to the UP freight yard in North Little Rock, Arkansas. The train was over a mile long and was traveling at a speed of fifty-two miles per hour. So far, the run had been clear sailing, as engineer Stephen Shroyer approached the small town of Bryant, Arkansas. Suddenly, while going through the town of Alexander, he saw something in his path; he could not tell what it was. As his train drew closer, he made the horrifying discovery that two boys were lying motionless across the railroad tracks.
He placed the train into an emergency stop position and laid down on the horn. However, he was unable to stop it in time. Within about three seconds, he hit the boys. Stephen noted that although three seconds does not seem like a long amount of time, it felt like an eternity for him. The weight of the heavy cargo train carried it for a full half mile. The boys' bodies were terribly mangled.
The two victims were identified as sixteen-year-old Don Henry and seventeen-year-old Kevin Ives. They were best friends and popular students at Bryant High School, where they would have been seniors. It seemed difficult to believe that they would lay on the tracks without moving a muscle, while a huge freight train was hurtling towards them blaring its horn. The state medical examiner, Dr. Fahmy Malak, said they had been under the influence of marijuana and ruled the deaths accidental. Their parents could not accept that ruling. They began a crusade to find out what really happened and salvage the reputation of their sons.
Kevin’s father, Larry, could not believe that his son was knocked out on marijuana or into any kind of heavy drugs. He was usually present when Kevin returned home from school and his mother, Linda, was always home at nights. Neither had they ever seen Kevin “spaced out” nor any signs that he was into drugs. By all accounts, Kevin and Don were typical teenage boys who both loved to work on their cars and hunt. Don was a natural comedian and Kevin was his best audience.
On most weekends, the two double dated. However, on the night of Saturday, August 22, 1987, Kevin and Don met a group of friends on the outskirts of Little Rock at a favorite gathering place for the local teenagers. The two left around midnight to go back to Don’s house. Kevin waited on the porch while Don went inside to talk to his father, Curtis. Curtis recalls that Don came into his bedroom at around 12:15am. He said that he and Kevin were going to go out hunting. He took Curtis’ spotlight and took his own .22 rifle. They talked for about fifteen minutes before he left.
Kevin and Don set off to go spotlighting, a form of night hunting which is illegal in Arkansas. One of them would shine a light in the animal’s eyes, transfixing the prey while the other fired. Spotlighting was a fairly widespread activity among the local boys. Kevin and Don had avoided being caught. That night, they chose their usual hunting ground, along the railroad tracks that ran behind Don’s house. By then, it was almost 1AM. Curtis was not worried about them going into the woods because he did not think they would get in trouble.
Three hours later, Stephen Shroyer’s locomotive came speeding down Bryant Hill. When they were about six poles away from Kevin and Don, his conductor yelled out “big-o” and he immediately realized that there were bodies on the tracks. To him, it looked like they had been laid out by someone. They were lying exactly across the tracks; their legs were across the rails, their torsos were between the tracks, and their arms were straight down by their sides. They were partially covered by a light green tarp. Lying parallel to both of them was Don’s .22 rifle. Neither of them was moving. When Stephen laid down on the diesel horn, he got no reaction from them. The train then went over them.
What had caused Kevin and Don to lie side-by-side on the railroad tracks? The state medical examiner, Dr. Malak, concluded they had smoked the equivalent of twenty marijuana cigarettes. He determined that they had been in a deep sleep induced by the "psychedelic" effects of the drug and had never heard the oncoming train. He ruled their deaths an accident. Their parents would not accept Dr. Malak’s conclusion.
Linda wondered, if they were that stoned, how were they able to lie down in identical positions? That was her immediate reaction to the ruling. Curtis had the train’s sound checked and found that it was ninety-eight decibels, which is equivalent to the sound of a jackhammer or an air compressor running. He does not believe that anyone could sleep through that kind of noise. He also points out that Don’s gun was laying on the gravel. He does not believe Don would do that because he would not want the wood getting scratched.
Kevin and Don’s families hired a private investigator to try and figure out what happened to them. However, he repeatedly received resistance from authorities, who seemed unwilling to cooperate or change their opinions about the case. As a result, the families were not able to move forward with their investigation. Five months after the deaths, Kevin and Don’s parents held a press conference. They hoped to force the authorities to reopen the investigation. The plan worked. The day after the conference, the investigation was officially reopened.
Newly appointed prosecutor Richard Garrett had Kevin and Don’s bodies exhumed for a second autopsy to be performed by a noted expert. This doctor concluded that together, they had smoked not twenty, but between one and three marijuana cigarettes. Friends who were with them that night confirmed this amount. He also found evidence to indicate that one of them was already dead and one unconscious when the train hit them. Furthermore, he found evidence that Dr. Malak did not follow proper procedures when conducting the autopsies. Other medical experts and researchers stated that it was highly unlikely, if not impossible, for a person to pass out from smoking marijuana. It seemed especially unlikely that it would happen to two people at the same time. In July 1988, a grand jury reversed Dr. Malak’s original finding of accidental death and officially ruled their deaths "probable homicides."
Garrett then focused on the green tarp. Neither Kevin nor Don owned such a tarp. Who had covered them with it and why? All four of the people on the train who were able to observe the scene prior to the accident stated that the bodies were partially covered by the green tarp. Police who searched the scene later denied that Stephen had told them about the tarp. According to Stephen, they questioned the existence of the tarp. He felt that was like questioning the existence of the bodies on the tracks. He was certain that the tarp was there. Garrett also believes that the tarp existed. However, it was never found.
The ensuing investigation unearthed an intriguing lead. One week before Kevin and Don were killed, a man wearing military fatigues had been spotted in the vicinity. His behavior had aroused suspicion. When police officer Danny Allen stopped to question him, the man opened fire. By the time Allen got up from his seat, the man was gone. Five minutes later, Celine County officers showed up. They searched the area, but were unable to find the man. On the night Kevin and Don died, witnesses again reported seeing a man in military fatigues. This time, he was leaving town, heading down a road less than 200 yards from the spot where the bodies were run over. Police have been unable to locate him.
Six weeks after the investigation was reopened, Garrett came up with a strangely similar case. In Hogden, Oklahoma, just 200 miles west of Little Rock, two young men, Billy Hainline and Dennis Decker, lying together on the railroad tracks had been run over by a locomotive in 1984. They were lying motionless on the tracks, in a position nearly identical to Kevin and Don’s.
Garrett believes that Kevin and Don were murdered. He believes the assailant(s) incapacitated one of them, and then, felt like they had to do something to the other one. To cover their tracks, they laid them on the railroad tracks and covered them up with a tarp. He is not sure why someone would do that, however.
Prior to working on this case, Garrett never carried a gun. However, since he started working on it, he has carried one. He feels that his life could be in danger. Kevin and Don’s parents are determined to continue working on and investigating the case until it is solved. They have spent many hours at the spot where they were killed, wondering how it could have happened. They believe that Kevin and Don walked up on something that they were not supposed to see; they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Suspects: The man wearing military fatigues witnessed by police and others remains a possible suspect, but police have never been able to locate or positively identify him.
Police speculated that Kevin and Don's murder may have been related to drug trafficking. Several witnesses who testified before the grand jury were charged with drug trafficking and other offenses. However, no suspects were identified.
In June 1988, a local man came forward, claiming that on the night of the murder, he saw two police officers beating two boys senseless in a store parking lot before tossing them into a police car and driving away. The officers later returned to the scene without the boys. It is not known if the boys were Kevin and Don.
Extra Notes:

  • This case originally aired on the October 12, 1988 episode of Unsolved Mysteries. It was updated on the November 30, 1988 episode. It was later re-profiled in the Dennis Farina hosted series on the August 7, 2009 and August 21, 2009 episodes.
  • It is also known as the "Boys on the Tracks" case.
  • It was also the subject of a book, The Boys on the Tracks, by Mara Leveritt, published by Bird Call Press in 1999.
  • It was featured in a two-part episode of "The Trail Went Cold" podcast.
  • It ranks as one of the most remembered cases in the entire series.
  • Scott Johnson and Norman Ladner are two other cases involving youths who might have been murdered after observing drug drops.

Results: Unresolved. Garrett had another autopsy conducted on Kevin and Don. In October 1988, shortly after the broadcast, the results were released. The expert pathologist, Joe Burton, found an apparent stab wound in Don's back and a wound to Kevin's cheek. He determined that tears in Don's t-shirt fabric indicated that he had been stabbed in the back with a large knife and that Kevin had apparently been struck in the head with a rifle butt, possibly Don's (the wound to his cheek matched the shape of the rifle butt). Congestion was also found in their lungs which indicated that they had been hurt before being hit by the train. As a result, the grand jury changed its ruling from "probable homicide" to "definite homicide."
Anonymous tips to the telecenter suggested that Kevin and Don were murdered by drug traffickers, and that they may have stumbled into the middle of a "drug drop." Garrett was later interviewed by Robert Stack; he claimed that there was drug trafficking throughout Bryant and Saline County that was also connected to several other counties and states. He believes that Kevin and Don stumbled on either drug traffickers or a drug lab that manufactured methamphetamine and that they were killed as a result. He believes that others were involved or have knowledge of who was involved. He also suspects that there was some sort of police cover-up involved in the case; however, he was not sure if it was inadvertent or deliberate.
In late December 1988, the grand jury investigating the case released their final report, stating that the deaths were the result of foul play; however, no indictments were issued regarding the deaths. The grand jury urged authorities to continue investigating the deaths and the drug problem in the county. In March 1990, Kevin and Don's manner of death were officially changed from "accidental" to "homicide."
In 1995, the investigation into Kevin and Don's murders was officially closed without their killer(s) captured or identified. Their families have conducted their own investigations and are still hoping that the case can be solved.
In 1996, Linda and film producer Patrick Matrisciana released the documentary, Obstruction of Justice: The Mena Connection, which detailed the botched investigation into the murders. It also looked into an alleged drug ring in Saline County which ran out of Mena Airport and was covered up by police. The film alleged that Kevin and Don were killed after they accidentally witnessed a clandestine drug deal that involved top state officials. Several people were implicated in this conspiracy, which involved numerous investigations and two grand juries. In the documentary, two veteran sheriff's deputies, Jay Campbell and Kirk Lane, were alleged to be the killers. It was alleged that they were the officers seen beating the two boys in a store parking lot. They denied any involvement in the case and sued Matrisciana and his film company for defamation, and the judge awarded them $USD598,750. However, Matrisciana successfully appealed the verdict, which was overturned in 1999.
Former Saline County prosecuting attorney Dan Harmon investigated the case and presented evidence to the grand jury. He later served time in prison on federal drug and racketeering charges. Interestingly, Campbell and Lane were involved in investigating Harmon. They believe that he found out about their investigation and named them as suspects in order to taint their credibility and hinder their investigation into him. Linda at first trusted Harmon, but later came to believe he was involved. An ex-girlfriend of his reportedly told an investigator that Harmon and two other men were responsible for the murders. However, he was never charged in the case or officially labeled a suspect.
In August 2016, Linda sued the United States over Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. She hoped to force eight federal agencies and three Arkansas-based law enforcement agencies to produce any documents they had about the case. A federal judge later dismissed many of the agencies listed, but ordered three of them to turn over the pertinent documents to him. However, Linda and her attorney did not find anything in the documents related to the murders.
In January 2018, former wrestler Billy Jack Haynes came forward, claiming that he had witnessed Kevin and Don's murders and knew who was responsible. He claimed that he was hired by a "corrupt Arkansas politician" to provide "muscle" at an Arkansas drug stop. While there, he allegedly witnessed the murders. However, many do not consider him to be a credible source.
On October 23, 2018, Garrett passed away at the age of seventy-two. On June 3, 2021, Linda passed away at the age of seventy-one. Just a few months later, on August 24, Kevin's sister, Alicia, passed away at the age of fifty-three.
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